DIY – making a small greenhouse from recycled wood and metal frame

Hello friends!

We decided we need a greenhouse for our vegetables, especially for tomatoes because last year we had some issues and most of the tomatoes were rotten because of the heavy rain during the grow phase. And because we are crafty people 🙂 we decided to make a small greenhouse and we even recycled some wood for this project. Making it happen took us a half day to complete … it is a lot of work even if it does not look like much when you look at it.

Here is what we used as building materials for our DIY greenhouse:

– 3 metal roses arches

(we bought those from a local store for a different purpose but…the purpose changed – that is life)

– some recycled wood boards

– galvanized wire

– some screws

– electrical screwdriver

– A plier

– greenhouse foil

– a ladder

The dimensions of the greenhouse will be determined by the construction materials you have at hand. If you don’t have any recycled wood to use and want to buy all the wood and materials then my advice is to plan the dimensions from the start so you know exactly what you need to buy.

Length, width and height:

We used some recycled wood boards,the most of them were 2 meters long and some longer that needed to be sawed, the final length of our greenhouse was a bit more than 2 meters. The width was decided by the metal arches, about 1,60 m. The height was also decided by the metal arches 2,50 m.

For the backbone of the greenhouse we used 3 rose arches we bought from a local store. First we bought only one to use it as a rose arch but we saw that the arch has enough stability when we assembled them. We decided then to buy one more and to use it as backbone for the future greenhouse.

Assembly instructions for the do it yourself greenhouse:

First step: we assembled the rose arches and fixed them into the ground (about 20-25 cm deep into the ground so they have some stability and not to be blown by the wind, heavy rain).

The second step: we tied the wood boards into the sides starting from the ground up. To fix the wood boards on the metal arch we used some galvanized wire and a plier like in the picture below. Rotate the wire using the plier until the wood board is fixed to the metal and use at least 4-6 fixation points to insure a greater stability for the greenhouse.

Pay attention to the wire leftovers , bend them next to the wood not to harm you or the foil you will later apply.

Leave one of the sides of the greenhouse untied on the ground side because you will want to have some ventilation for the stuff you grow inside during the hot days of summer. You might come with another ventilation idea, if you do please comment below.

You might want to add some extra wood in the back of the greenhouse and one vertical one in the front of the greenhouse, just in the middle, this way you can have a half of the front as entrance.

When you are done with the wood is time for the greenhouse foil to be applied. Cut the foil into the necessarily size measuring first your greenhouse skeleton and then start from one side to another applying the foil.

To fix the foil we used some screws and just screwed the foil into the wood planks. You might want to protect the foil from ripping off so the solution for this was some invented plastic nuts, we made some plastic nuts from tiny pieces of foil… This way you are sure the foil is stretched enough and it will not tear apart because it was pierced by the screws.

Like in the picture above! Here you can be creative and use other materials to connect the foil on the greenhouse skeleton but we used the most easy way we could think of.

When the sides are done cut some more foil to use on the back and on the front of the greenhouse, you can cut the foil into the right shape or just cut it in a rectangular shape, the corners can be squeezed inside the greenhouse or removed later.

When you are all done applying the foil, you might want to leave one side in the front of your newly build greenhouse as entrance. If you like you can make a wood frame and use it as a door. We did not built a door yet and we just left one side of the foil unscrewed and just fold it and use it as an entrance.

Here is the final result, the front of the greenhouse and in the right side the entrance not fixed:

The building of the greenhouse took about 4 hours, we are not building professionals so at the end we had a great joy making this do it yourself project, and we will have a warm place where to grow organic vegetables. About growing organic vegetables we will follow up in the next days with an article about the stuff we already planted in our “brand new” greenhouse.

That is it!

Have a wonderful day and please share this if you think it is useful for other people.

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